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Wind energy potential in the Bolivian Andes. A numerical approach

par Mamani, Rober
Président du jury Parente, Alessandro
Promoteur Hendrick, Patrick
Publication Non publié, 2022-08-24

Thèse de doctorat

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Résumé :

Wind energy has been one of the best options for developing renewable, clean, and sustainable electricity. The development of wind energy projects begin with prospection of suitable sites for wind farms and that process relies on meteorological data. The vast, complex and high altitude land of the Bolivian Andes represent an important challenge for wind energy assessment, mainly due to the scarce knowledge about wind meteorology, and wind turbine performance in the highlands of Bolivia. In this thesis, the performance of wind farms in the highlands of Bolivia was evaluated computing its capacity factor, and wind turbine efficiency. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF v3.8.1) model was parameterized, and the re-analysis data MERRA-2 was evaluated for wind energy and power assessment over the Bolivian Andes.The wind farm performance in the highlands of the Bolivian Andes have been analysed in Qollpana wind farm. The yearly capacity factor was between 0.27 and 0.4. The wind turbines behaviour showed higher efficiency at high-wind conditions. The operation and performance of Qollpana wind farm prove the technical capability to implement wind farms in the Bolivian Andes. The WRF model parameterization was focused in the Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL) schemes due to its major impact in the wind speed and the results showed that NOAH (Land surface), RRTMG (Radiation), KAIN (Convective), THOMPSON (Microphysics), and QNSE (PBL) are the best combination of physical schemes for wind speed and wind direction prediction. However, the temperature was under-predicted in the highlands of Bolivia. The MERRA-2 dataset was evaluated for wind speed assessment and compared with WRF simulations at different altitudes along Bolivia. The comparison showed the under-prediction of wind speed by MERRA-2 when the terrain is complex and high. However, the main factor for the under-predicion of wind speed was the complexity of the terrain. The wind power potential in the Bolivian Andes by WRF model is around 225 GW (21546 km\textsuperscript{2} of high-wind land) of installed capacity, which would translate in a power generation of 701.38 TWh/year. The installed capacity could be higher according to the Global Wind Atlas (GWA) due to the available area for wind farms is 26511 km\textsuperscript{2} assuming the same conditions as in WRF model. The GWA estimation could be more precise due to finer gridding for the computations. This potential is huge compared with the Bolivian electricity consumption, and 828 units of V136/3.45 wind turbines could be enough to generate the electricity consumed in one year. However, to determine the wind power potential is the first milestone to achieve a sustainable, clean, and environmental-friendly wind energy development in Bolivia.The PhD thesis is composed by 7 chapters. Chapter 1 and 2 correspond to the introduction and the Literature review. Chapter 3 the Qollpana wind farm is evaluated, using its capacity factor and the efficiency of a wind turbine at high-altitude conditions. In Chapter 4 the parameterization of WRF model is developed, and the best combination of physics schemes are determined. In Chapter 5 MERRA-2 dataset and WRF simulations are compared to analyse its suitability for wind speed assessment. Chapter 6 the wind energy and power potential in the Bolivian Andes is performed by GWA and WRF. Finally, Chapter 7 presents the conclusions and perspectives.